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There’s a sad consistency to how events unfold during the kinds of large-scale violence that too frequently occur in our society. News of a shooting trickles in through our medium of choice. Reporters frantically seek information on the perpetrators. We’re given a preliminary body count. We’re told that the numbers are expected to grow. We wait in dread for confirmation about terrorist ties.

When a clearer picture emerges, we most often find the mayhem was committed by a lone, troubled individual who – but for one explosive moment – lived a mundane life undeserving of the amount of attention he or she receives. For a while at least, this individual becomes an unlikely totem through which we redouble our discussions about gun control, mental health and national security.